Operation: Wedding
by Mischief Mage
Summary: Heero and Relena are finally tying the knot. And what a diplomatic knot it is. But a substandard team of undercover rebels infiltrates the wedding in an attempt to end the engagement. Naturally, chaos ensues. Very mild yaoi references
1. Prologue: The way things are

** Mischief mage: **If you are a fan of Relena and do not want to see her bashed, then get away. Way WAY AWAY. It's for you're own good.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own gundam wing. I sometimes wish i did...but i don't**  
**

**

* * *

Nickname:** Ggurl

**Password: **d-u-o-c-o-u-l-d-d-o-m-e-a-n-y-d-a-y

**Chatroom: **5 Gundam Bishies

**Click **

**MistressMaxwell: **No, u dn't gt it. 1x2 is the only one that makes sense!

**DeathGoddess: **Agreed

**MistressMaxwell: **Let's tke a vote.

**shinigami:** 1x2

**DeathGoddess: **1x2

**BashRelenaBash:** Heechan and Shinigami 4eva!

**duomaxwell356956:** Heero and Duo

**bishiegurl:** Def.

**gundamluv: **no question

**sanckingdom53**: Heero and Relena?

…

…

**Bing-bong**

**sanckingdom53 received a file from MistressMaxwell **

**Bong-bing **

**sanckingdom53 has left chatroom.**

**shinigami: **Wht dd u do?

**MistressMaxwell: **Snt her a virus.

**shinigami: **good thinking.

* * *

**Mischief Mage: **Yeah...it was short. It is a prologue after all. 


	2. Down the grapevine

Mischief mage: Actually, i've changed my mind. I won't be bashing Relena that much...not to say that i won't...

* * *

The sun peeped up over the hilltops, what it saw made it want to slide back down the otherside and throw up in the gorge of the next city. It was a postcard picture morning of all postcard picture mornings. The few stars that had risked seeing the morning now puttered out in disgust as the reluctant rays of the sun illuminated the leafy green forest top. A river jaunted cheerfully back and forth, a blue zipper that held the two mountain ranges on either side of the valley together. Dew sparkled like the shards of glass, hiding the fact that there were shards of glass everywhere. The colonies had told the Earth that it was stupid to transport giant glass planes in fighter jets, but did they listen? Luckily the deer prancing about didn't notice. Yes there were deer, there's always deer. If you don't have deer and some oddly outgoing bunnies snuffling about then it's just not worth it.

Beside the sparkling river, two silhouettes stand in the syrupy sunlight. Or rather, one stands and one kneels, getting their pants soaked through on the dew not to mention getting glass encrusted knees. How they got to the middle of this godforsaken home of Disney allusions not saying that Disney is bad is completely irrelevant of course. Their lips move. The rabbits and deer and all the widdle birdies stick their heads in as though they care.

'Relena?...'

'Heero…'

'Relena…'

'Heero'

'Relena?'

'Heero…I'

'Relen-OW'

The baseball league parrot with one to many deer droppings was quickly detained. He was later sent to a containment facility where he was re-educated before being deemed safe to return to the wild.

"Anyway…Relena"

"Heero"

"Relena"

…

…

…

"Heero, will you marry me?"

FLUMP"

The pilot had fallen straight backwards onto a bed of cold, wet grass; he was out like Quatre after 2 shots of gin. Of course Quatre believed that gin was just a word that rhymed with shin. Relena got up off her knee, pulled out a folded piece of paper and a pen.

_Get engaged to Heero…Check_

Returning the list to her pocket, Relena rolled up her sleeves, grasped her new fiancé around the ankle and began dragging him back to her pretty pink limousine. The shape of Heero's spread-eagled body in the grass was fenced off and made into a tourist attraction with the entire valley being cleared, developed, blown up by future guerrilla warfare and then redeveloped.

That's industry for you.

* * *

_Click._

_ Click._

_Click._

_ Click_

_Click._

_ Click_

_Click._

_ Click_

_Click_

_ Click_

_Click._

_ Click_

…

_This is stupid_

…

_Highlight._

_Click._

_No messages in inbox_

Duo Maxwell lent back on his chair stretching his back. _This is what secretary's are for…_. But he knew that he would never go there again, not after the last one whose name was Sheryl, had five shots of straight vodka for breakfast, lunch, tea, smelt like the after effects of asparagus and had a bad habit of leaving her paper shredder in inappropriate places, namely places that were normally occupied by Duo's braid.

Duo glanced at the clock on the corner of the screen.

_Still got half an hour before Hilde figures out that I conned her into doing the dishes, plus maybe an extra fifteen minutes after she finds the flour spill in the kitchen…how about some… net surfing!_

The braided pilot's hand shot out onto the mouse which practically squealed at the indignity of being handled in such a way.

_Click, click, click, clickety, click!_

_Duo Maxwell Message board._

_Big news?_

_Click_

"_**Ggurl: **OMG. Has every1 herd? Heero and Relena are engaged_

_**1x2luva:** Ever1 says that_

_**Ggurl: **No. Im serious! They r engaged! It said so in the news!_

_**1x2luva:** If you dare say that again I am going come over there and shove my computer screen up your-"_

_CLICK_

Duo exited the internet, staring as his rainbow coloured squiggles wriggled across the screen saver.

After twenty minutes, he started to laugh. A laugh that didn't take breaths. I kind of non-stop, crazy, maniacal but sadly hysterical laugh. Can't imagine it? Tell a double amputee that if they don't start laughing then you're going to start sawing off their legs.Record them and play it over and over again with out breaks. That's what it sounded like.

When Hilde came in, Duo had passed out on the floor. She took full advantage of it.

* * *

'Focus. Focus'

Trowa stood balancing on tightrope that should have cut through his feet.

'TROWA. PHONE!'

Pilot number 3 swayed slightly but regained his balance in time to snatch a black cordless phone from the air in front of him. He nodded thanks to Catherine.

'Hello?'

Catherine returned to her caravan while the ringmaster remained watching him from about 80 feet below. The man froze. Not a concentrated frozen but popsicle frozen. And we all know that popsicles aren't decent circus performers, they just have no personality. The ringmaster watched, not twitching a muscle. Trowa fell in a pool of liquid being prepared below with a "schplop".

The ringmaster sighed and nudged one of the workers, "Make sure he doesn't drink any of that. That's the kerosene for the fire breather act."

He then walked calmly from the tent, twirling his moustache around his finger all the way.

* * *

Quatre looked up from the email from Trowa to Rashid who was reading it over his shoulder.

"But…I thought that Duo…"

* * *

"You have reached the voice mailbox of Heero Yuy. I'm not here. Leave a message. If you are an insane yaoi fangirl. I will hunt you down and kill you."

Booooooot

"Heero Yuy, It's Wufei. I got Relena's message and I just wanted to tell you……DON'T DO IT! GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN! YOU CAN NEVER GO BACK! SAVE YOURSELF! YOU'RE RUN – ARGH. GET OFF ME SALLY! (sounds of pushing and shoving) wait…Sally what are you doing? HEY! GET AWAY FROM THAT POWER COR –"

* * *


	3. Youth drinking statistics: Minorities

**Mischief Mage:** Did i actually even write a disclaimer on the first page?

Anyway,

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam wing or any of the characters...which is probably a good thing

* * *

CHOP. 

CHOP.

CHOP.

CHOP.

…

…

CHOPCHOPCHOPCHOPCHOPCHOPCHOPCHOPCHOPCHOP

Quatre couldn't help but wince as Duo hacked enthusiastically at the watermelon in the corner, the long-haired pilot's contribution to the stag night. After every few chops, he would take an energetic swig from his bottle of beer and would then put it down…beside the empty two.

About five years on since the end of the war and the pilots were having their first stag night. Ever.

It was a unanimous decision that the party would be held at Quatre's house. That of course was a unanimous decision made by everyone _but _Quatre.

Once Duo had finished dicing his watermelon, he joined the other four pilots on the couches around a low glass coffee table, bringing his brown bottle with him, setting it down with the four other drinks. Quatre had been trained to drink white wine in with a great deal of dignity and with more poise in his hand then Duo had in his entire body. Heero had a bottle of beer identical to Duo's, and he would drink from it whenever he was sure that nobody was looking. That's just the way he was, you NEVER saw Heero eating. Wufei would take a gulp from his small glass of gin every now and again. Meanwhile Trowa had a tankard sized glass filled up with what seemed to be vodka.

Duo grasped Trowa's glass and took a swig of it before spitting it out all over the carpet, gagging.

'It burns us! It burns us!' he gurgled in a tortured voice, clutching his throat, 'TROWA. What the hell was that?'

'Water'

'No wonder. You don't drink?'

'No'

'I couldn't tempt you with one of my specially made cocktails?'

'No'

'Sure?'

'Yes'

'Really?...positive?'

'Yes'

'You sure you're sure?'

'I'm going to go get some watermelon'

Duo gave up and flung himself down onto the couch beside Wufei.

…

Quatre ventured, 'So…what do we do now?'

'A good question Quatre, one that I will happily answer in a moment' Duo replied graciously.

'Wufei' he said turning to the pilot in question, 'you were in charge of entertainment. What happens now?'

Wufei bit his lip, he hadn't been able set up an entertainment. Looking up 'stag nights' on the internet had brought up ads for enough strippers that could inhabit their own colony...in fact it seemed that they did. He had run the idea past Trowa and Quatre but they had been set against the idea through 'diplomatic reasoning' by their sisters.

He finally gave in. 'There is nothing'

Heero groaned, his first and likely last ever stag night for himself and everyone was sitting around as awkwardly as a duck meeting a wolf at 5 minute speed dating.

The four pilots that were drinking took sips to avoid talking while Trowa, gracefully stuffed watermelon in his mouth.

Duo, who could hold his tongue as a rhino could hold a bar of wet soap, began to talk, because he simply had to.

'So…Heero, you're getting married'

Heero nodded.

There was an awkward silence.

Wufei was the first to burst.

'I cannot _believe_ that you said yes.'

'I didn't, I passed out and when I woke up I was hand-cuffed and chained to Relena's couch-'

Duo leant forward eagerly.

'With a ring on my finger. I'm pretty sure that it's knitted into my skin. It hurt a lot when I ripped it off. I had to have it sewn back on because I don't have any spare skin. Relena went out to get us takeaways. I had escaped by the time she got back.'

Duo lay back, disappointed.

'How did you get off the couch' Quatre asked

'I didn't'

Quatre had a brief image of an ornate, patterned sofa running down the highway. He was dragged from this image by the slurping of watermelon. He glanced over at the table in the corner where Trowa was sucking on the fruity pink flesh in a very un-trowa like way.

'Trowa, you'll choke'

'Hahaaaa…Don't worry about me. I can look after myshelf. But that'sh _sho_ nishe of you'

Quatre stared.

'Okay' he said slowly, looking at the other pilots who shrugged looking just as nonplussed, meanwhile, Trowa had returned to his fruit guzzling, having emptied half of the plate.

'Anyway, Heero' Duo said, his mind already reverting back to its previous occupation, 'if you didn't want to marry her, why didn't you just say so. You've threatened to kill her half a dozen times by my counting so it shouldn't be that hard.'

'Yeah and by the way,' Wufei added, 'Don't tell the yaoi girls that you're going to kill them. They see it as a form of endearment. I've tried it. I told them I'd stick a vacuum cleaner down their throats set on reverse, they started giggling madly and writing 'Mrs Chang' all over the rover; Sally took the cost to cover it up from my wages.

Heero looked almost afraid upon being told that his number one technique of keeping people away would now attract them before answering Duo's question.

'I never said that I didn't want to marry her. It's not a bad option for me. I have no prospects, if I pull a gun out in public I get run down by police vans, I get prosecuted when those mobs of fangirls start fighting for 'causing violence'. I talked to the attorney that Relena hired for me. The only way out of that one was to kill myself. Except if the girls then copied me I would've have been charged with manslaughter. My way of life during the war is incompatible with a peaceful society. Besides, Pagan told me that the marriage of a Gundam pilot to 'Queen' Relena would silence much of the disquiet in the world. It's supported by more than half of the countries in the world that actually matter and I might finally get some peace of my own.'

The four other pilots sighed as one after this speech which quickly directed their attention to the fact that Trowa was once again amongst them, a stupid grin painted across his face, dotted with watermelon seeds.

'Trowa? Are you okay?' Quatre asked him tentatively.

'Fine, I'm fine. Hell I'm hungry…I could really go for a banana split right now. Would any one else like one? We could split it…ha…HA…a split banana split….a split split…a banana split squared haha..' Trowa began chatting animatedly at everybody, all of whom were receding into the depths of the couch in an attempt to get away from the brainless monstrosity that loomed up above them.

'Trowa…YOU'RE PISSED…REAL BAD' Duo screamed shielding his eyes with a pillow.

'Isn't there some more watermelon that you could be eating?' Wufei added from behind the couch.

'There'sh none left.' Trowa mumbled sadly, 'Or should I shay that there ishn't any more watermelon…'caushe…left'sh just the opposhite to right and that'sh just plain shilly. Shilly ha…kinda like a shilling! Haha…'

It's been said people can see a bit into a person's true soul when they're drunk. Going on what he had said already, Trowa should probably have been hospitalized at birth and never let out again.

'Oh _shit_!' Duo groaned, smacking himself hard on the head, ' that's it! The watermelon. He's gotten drunk off the watermelon'

'What?' the others chorused, this included Trowa who seemed to be having the time of his life.

'I thought he knew. It was a vodka watermelon.' Duo replied, putting his forehead in his upturned hands, 'You cut a hole in the melon, stick a funnel in and pour in the vodka. The fruit soaks it up. I don't want to know how much alcohol he's had if he ate all of it.'

Duo snatched up a bottle poured himself a large glass of gin and prepared to throw it all back. You didn't have to be responsible if you were blacked out.

'No food?' a wet voice asked, 'Whoa… I shure am thirshhh….ty. Gimme shome of that.' Trowa snatched the drink away just as the glass had touched Duo's lips.

'No Trowa! That's not-'

Quatre stopped as his friend finished draining the glass. Once done, Trowa smiled contentedly at everyone before folding like a newspaper onto the floor.

'-water' Quatre finished.

Heero who, unnoticed, had steadily been blowing more and more steam out his ears was almost ready to explode and take the house with him. It was his stag night and Duo had gotten Trowa drunk within the first half-hour; now one fifth of the party was unconscious on the ground and in danger of going into an alcohol induced coma.

'Heero'

There was a break in the smoke signals that Heero was letting off through his ears as he looked down to Quatre who was kneeling down beside his fallen comrade, checking his pulse.

'Trowa's okay I think. We've got to get him back to the circus'

Steam stopped rising out his ears as his heart plummeted.

The other conscious pilots had frozen too. The universal cause of death is in fact the lack of oxygen to the brain but there are an infinite number of ways to get this result. One of the most feared over all the Earth was what these four pilots were soon going to put themselves in the way of.

Catherine Bloom.

* * *

One tense helicopter ride and a terrifying landing later, the five pilots had arrived beside the circus grounds with minimal damage to the trees in the park next door. Each of the four pilots taking one limb; they were able to tip-toe into the ground and amongst the caravans, the slick, black grass muffling their footsteps.

'His caravan is this way. We're passing security's now. Man, those guys's must be huge! Check out their maces hanging outside the door!'

'But not Catherine's?'

'No'

'Good'

'You know where all the caravans are?' Wufei asked incredulously his unseen eyebrow arching.

Quatre chose to begin panting with the supposed effort of carrying one fourth of a man in order to avoid the question.

'Well _I'm_ glad he knows' Duo put in, ''cause it's darker then a grave pit out he- CLANG

Everyone froze, almost dropping Trowa as Duo rubbed his head with one hand after walking straight into one of the large tin caravans. The vibrations rang out over the ground like a shrieking infant.

They waited for what seemed like an age but was really only two minutes before continuing.

_'Now. Don't'. Do. Than. Again.' _Heero hissed under his breath sideways at a Duo who was as bashful as his nature would allow him.

At long last they reached Trowa's caravan, they put him into bed hoping that he normally slept in his clothes should Catherine come to wake up the quasi-comatose pilot.

Once outside they began to half sprint, half tip toe back the way that they came, rather like a video of someone sneaking fast-forwarded.

At last they could see the moonlight glinting off the turbine of the helicopter. The pilots' hearts sang, but quickly hit a sour note as Duo, running full tilt, tripped over Wufei's feet, knocking into a thin crate; a crate which, to the pilots' dismay, was filled with pressure activated fireworks, which, upon bursting in all directions in a shower of rainbow sparks, caught the fuse on a loaded canon. The canon gave off with a bang, firing out a large ball of blackened metal straight into a caravan, knocking it over with a sickening creak.

When the ringmaster came out the next morning, rubbing his eyes, all he could find of the culprits were four pairs of foot prints in the grass and the outline of someone who seemed to have been struck around the head with a giraffe feeder.

**

* * *

**

**Mischief Mage:** Next chapter: The day of the wedding and the guests and press are swarming, just as Heero had dreaded. Meanwhile, despite having the encouragement and blessings of half the world, things aren't going too great for Relena.


	4. The dawning of a doomsday

** Mischief Mage:** Here's the title that i had wanted, but that silly thing won't let me have a title that long. So this chapter gets two titles! Isn't it exciting? Yeah...i thought so too...

**

* * *

**

**Chapter IV: Numb extremities, hypersensitivity and blood loss  
**

The day of the wedding finally dawned. Heero stared at the sun from his apartment window, wondering whether blowing up the sun would postpone the wedding a day or two so that he would compose himself. He sighed and began to pull his suit on. Duo, the best man, was due to be there in about half-an-hour and he didn't want his help when it came to clothes. Last time he had taken Duo's advice on clothes, he had been swarmed at from all directions by girls and girly boys alike. He had come home, clothes hanging in shreds from his shoulders, with a charge for indecent exposure waiting for him.

The door bell rang just as Heero was brushing his hair, not that it was making any difference of course.

Duo was his usual ecstatic self and looked prepared to dance with every bridesmaid and affront every mother; the moment he entered the small, one bedroom apartment, he shot straight for Heero's front to re-adjust his boutonniere, which was upside down. Heero stood still, allowing Duo to straighten his jacket after flowers had been straightened to his satisfaction; prod his hair, giving up after he found that Heero's hair didn't comply with the wishes of hair gel, spray or gravity, not that his hair was _anything _compared to Trowa's; Heero even let Duo shine his shoes so much that he had to wear sunglasses whenever they caught the sunlight and also allowed him to apply copious amounts of cologne to his body, but he stopped Duo with a swift whack on the side of the head when his friend had tried to pour the cologne in his pants.

'It's your wedding night tonight' he explained whilst he rubbed the bulging lump on the side his head.

'I don't think anyone will be down there Duo.'

The sensible hemisphere of Duo's brain forced him to keep his mouth shut and shrug while it violently pelted the dirty hemisphere with neural-atom bombs; if Heero had been looking at Duo rather than kneading his temples with his eyes squeezed shut, he would have seen the left side of the long haired pilot twitching every few seconds.

But Heero's mind was clearly occupied by other thoughts. He was sitting down on his single bed almost forlornly. Duo sat down beside him.

'I don't understand, Duo, I was so sure that this was the right decision. But now I'm not so sure.'

'That, my friend, is called "cold feet". You're just nervous, just don't think about it. You have to trust the decision that you made when you weren't about to take a flying leap into a world where every one of Relena's concerns become yours as well.

Heero didn't look very convinced.

'But what if I really have made the wrong decision?'

'Well, there's always divorce'

Heero continued looking depressed. Duo took the opportunity to grasp Heero's shoulder in a brotherhood-of-men way with one hand, and stuff and air freshener down his friend's pants with the other.

* * *

'Glorious' 'Breath taking' 'Captivating' 'Gorgeous' 

Four bridesmaids, cooed in chorus as Relena did minor twirls in front of the mirror in her wedding dress. For a brief moment, there was a sudden darkness accompanied with a great deal of swearing and clicking. Within seconds, the room was relit by the flashes of scores of photographers after they had replaced the film in their high power cameras.

Relena whirled around to face them upon seeing the reflection Pagan crawling out from amongst the mob in the mirror.

'Miss Relena, I have your copy of the guest list' he told her, bowing and panting slightly.

'Thank you Pagan. Do each of the gate men have one?'

'Yes, Miss Relena'

'And how many of the press have arrived?'

'About two thirds of them I believe'

Relena nodded in satisfaction, there was no need to hire a photographer when you were as close to being Queen of the world as mortally possible.

'But there is one matter that needs attention Miss Relena'

'What is that?' Relena asked quickly, concerned, this was her wedding day and everything had to be perfect.

'The ambassador from Africa's wedding gift is eating all the garden tables and is soiling all the waiters.'

'Lock it in the back room for now, when Trowa and Catherine Bloom arrive we can ask them how to look after it.'

'Miss, it's and _hippopotamus_.'

'Just as well we have a big back room then'

Pagan bowed dutifully and began to make his way to the door through the tempest of camera-men.

Relena returned to the mirror and smoothed out her dress.

_Perfect, everything has to be perfect._ She thought as she rubbed at an itch in her side.

* * *

'…25…26…27…28…29…30, yep, that's all of you, in you go.' 

Quatre and his 29 sisters flowed into through the gate like water of a burst damn. The girls dispersed to find their own amusement and Quatre shot straight for Trowa and Wufei who, already inside the gates, were standing to one side in their pressed suits and, unbeknownst to them, receiving flirtatious looks from Relena's friends who were also at the wedding.

'Hey guys. You both look great' Quatre called out cheerfully as he approached them.

'Sally picked it out for me.' Wufei sniffed, glancing down at himself.

Trowa on the other hand, didn't seem to notice Quatre at all. He looked decidedly pale and was swaying on his feet, eyes dim.

'Trowa? What's wrong?' the blonde ex-gundam-pilot asked, concerned, shaking him slightly.

'He's suffering from blood loss.' Wufei said matter-of-factly

'What?'

'Since the stag night, Catherine has been giving him blood tests every five minutes...'

It was then that Quatre noticed the puncture marks in Trowa's wrist.

'Every time he gets something to eat or drink, she gives him one every two minutes…'

Trowa's wristwatch beeped eerily and his green eyes, duller then usually, widened in panic.

'…and whenever Duo is within ten feet of him, every twenty seconds.'

Trowa cried on in a tortured voice as a pink blur wrestled him to the ground. Face down on the grass and with his wrist behind his back, Catherine was able to remove another half-syringe of blood from her de facto- brother. She pulled out a small rectangular device and deposited Trowa's blood into it. It beeped and a green light flashed. Satisfied, she got up off him, brushed herself down and walking off.

Quatre was almost sick with shock.

'It's been going on for the last half-hour now. At this rate, he'll be as dry as a raisin before the ceremony even begins'

'There must be something we can do!'

'One questions. Why? It's none of our business what goes on between them, besides…what are you looking at?'

Quatre had caught sight of Duo who was chatting to the arriving guests. He turned his body in that direction and began to head straight for him.

'You idiot!' Wufei screamed after him, 'he is the _last_ person that you need!'

Quatre skidded to a halt in front of Duo who, along with the two infamous reporters he had been talking to, stared at him. The blonde pilot gulped, he really wished that those reporters weren't there; they didn't need to hear anything about Trowa, one of the _Gundam_ pilots, being sucked dry by his blood-thirsty 'sister', they also didn't' need to think that Quatre's attentions to him were anything other than concern that Trowa may very soon have the same consistency of a potato chip.

'What's up Quatre?'

He hesitated, and then began to invent.

'Ummm…Duo, there's something wrong with the entertainment, the guy we hired is having trouble, the company he works for…they're…um….facing attacks from a _sister_ company.'

Duo looked puzzled and the reporters looked interested, but there was nothing to do but press on.

'By the end of the day, the company might be _drained_ entirely.'

Duo was still clueless. Quatre almost cried out in pent up frustration.

'He reckons that if we don't pull him out and cancel the engagement, he will look like a real _clown_.'

The penny finally seemed to drop; either the 'clown' thing had made sense _or_ Catherine making another attack on Trowa in the background with the syringe the size of the drink bottle had caught his eye.

Duo recovered quickly.

'Don't worry about it Kat. I'll go sort it out with that sister company now. Naturally, the sister company fears for the assets of the minor companies within their connections, by draining it, they can bring any wealth back into the fold so that they can manage it themselves. When one organisation screws up, naturally, they are open to the criticism of those who have their best interests at heart as well as their own. Fortune will come around, once the mighty have fallen upon the same step that the first did, they will suffer even more derision than the first and they will no longer have any right to suck the funds of minor companies. I'm sure that there must be some dirt that we can dig up on them. So this case is being worked through as we speak? Yes? Good. Well then, if I and my team can find anything on them, we can communicate it to those who most require it immediately, and if we can't find anything, we know this group intimately, we know how to manage them and induce them to act in such a way that will most efficiently reinstate the independence of the first company in question, and probably ensure their freedom from censure from the antagonist of this story.'

He said all this very quickly, and with that, Duo turned on his heel and headed into the midst of the gathered party guests.

Quatre blinked his blue eyes. Most of Duo's speech had gone straight over his head. So, either, Duo's worked a lot faster than Quatre had previously given him credit for and he was off to help Trowa, _or_ Duo had poured a basin-full of drivel from his mouth and escaped, leaving Quatre alone with the reporters.

The reporters were scribbling on their notepads, to Quatre, it seemed as though they were decoding the message that had passed between himself and Duo, but they were really only playing hangman.

Quatre sometimes wished that he could lie as imaginatively as Duo could. It was a matter of practice he supposed.

* * *

**Mischief Mage: **Sorry for the lack of descriptions of clothes but...that is one area where i fail miserably. Won't tell you what happens in the next chapter because, as a i have recently discovered, i'm not very good at it.  



	5. Hell hath no fury

Relena scratched at the itch on the small of her back. Relena scratched at the itch under her arms. Relena scratched at the itch around her neck, and on her thighs, her elbows, all over. Bright red blotches had appeared under her dress on her skin like reporters after a celebrity break-up as well as those weird knobbly kinds of things that you get as well. She longed to free herself from her dress but there were enough bows and knots in its construction that it could have provided a community of octopuses with more shoe laces than they would ever need. It was all that she could do to stop herself from scratching herself with the convenient rake which was leaning against the wall by the door. Heero came in the door just as she was itching the small of her back with extreme difficulty, face flushed from the exertion.

'Uhh…Relena?'

'What?' she snapped, wishing that her left arm could stretch five centimetres further.

'Could we talk?'

'Talk?' She whirled around in a flurry of lace to face him, 'Yeah we could talk. All I've ever wanted to do was talk. All through the war, I just wanted to talk. But would anyone listen to _anything _I had to say? Did you? Huh? Huh? You had to be one of the worst, always going off in that stupid angel rubbish can; thinking with you're damned testosterone pumps!'

She took a deep breath, gearing up to let out all the heat that had built up during her itching. Heero wished that he had never come in. She let go. Cracks appeared in the paint on the roof as Heero was pushed backwards from the wind and sound pumping from Relena's powerful pipes.

'How can you just barge in here, on my wedding day, and ask whether I could talk to you? The moment I get used to the idea of a mute, psycho husband and you float in acting like a fruit cake! Before you just used that phallic symbol to get away from me, then you decide to get in touch with your feelings at the last minute! Do you not want to get married? Don't you respect me? I knew it! You never have! None of my work has ever impressed you! I'm the Queen of the world for God's sake! Does that mean nothing to you? Don't stare at me as though I'm a lesser being! That's it! You're cheating on me aren't you? So who is it, you lying pig? Noin? Sally Poe? Hilde? Lady Une?'

She gasped. Heero mentally ducked for cover.

'DOROTHY! I knew it! You can't keep you're hands off that tart can you? Don't look so surprised! I knew it! Dorothy is OFF the guest list, you hear me? You're not getting out of this! Relena Peacecraft will _not_ be strung along! So what do you have to say to defend yourself? Huh? Huh? You wanted to have a talk? So TALK! What's wrong? Cat got you're tongue? Open up you yellow bellied liar!

If Heero had ever felt fear, it was now. He had been put up against a creature that was immune to his bank of threatening and killing prowess. So he did the one thing he could think of doing. Diving for the door.

'OH NO! DON'T THING THAT YOU'RE GETTING AWAY THAT EASILY!'

Heero ducked at the last minute before a porcelain vase was added to his facial features. He swung the door open and leapt out. Once beyond the threshold of the door, he turned back to her and called in a frightened voice 'I'll see you at the ceremony then.'

His eyes widened as they saw the rake hurtling towards him. He slammed the door shut just in time. Once the rake had clattered to the floor on the other side, he quickly stuck his head back in to tell her that Pagan had been admitted at the nearby hospital with large round footprints on his back. He slid down the dark wood of the door after retracting his vulnerable noggin from the range of Relena's throws, sighing. His nervousness had been somewhat magnified in learning that his fiancée was a woman who used every one of her 15000 daily word quota.

* * *

Quatre found that he was strangely remorseless as he watched two burly security guards pursue Dorothy Catalonia up and down the yard, shoving guests out of the way in an attempt to get to her. He might have been a bit more compassionate and more willing to help her if the second guard hadn't been carrying an axe of such devilish proportions. 

The blond pilot had been standing around by himself for some time now. Trowa had disappeared and was probably unconscious on the ground somewhere, regenerating blood, looking like a vampire victim. Duo had last been seen following Catherine around and Quatre had wisely decided that he didn't even want to know what he was planning. Wufei had simply disappeared as he usually did, with no real purpose in mind.

Twenty minutes after Dorothy had been 'ushered' out of the party, kicking and screaming. Relena flung open the doors of the stately house in the middle of the grounds and flew down the stairs, yelling into a walkie talkie that she would be out there (Quatre assumed that she meant the gate) to deal with Dorothy herself once she had picked up a rifle from the caretaker's shed.

As Quatre watched Relena speeding out of sight, he heard behind him.

'Strength must run in the family'

He looked over his shoulder to see Lucretia Noin and Zechs Marquis/Millardo Peacecraft standing side-by-side. They both looked tired. Zechs was to give Relena away and he had gotten off the express shuttle from Mars only the day before. Noin looked at Quatre and smiled slightly. She ostentatiously flicked back her fringe with her left hand, the light catching on something and almost blinding the young pilot.

After rubbing his eyes, tears streaming down his face, he glanced cautiously at her ring finger to see a diamond sitting on a golden ring like an extra fluffy loaf of bread on the thorax of a prematurely born ant. The rock was refracting the light in such a way that rainbows burst forth from six different places. Noin looked very pleased with herself. Zechs looked disgruntled.

After a year on Mars together, Noin and Zechs had decided to view themselves as man and wife; wed by the Planet of the God of War, witnessed by stars and the entire cosmos and consummated in the shuttle cockpit. He had been brought back down to Earth and its pricey reality with a hipbone shattering bump after being told by a fellow commander to 'pull himself together and get the poor girl a rock.'

And thus, they were to be married during the next month. Any hostilities or rivalries between Heero and Zechs had been done away with once they discovered that they were going through the same circle of Hell.

Noin was fishing an extravagant floral themed invitation to her wedding from her handbag for Quatre and his sisters, she had decided not to name them all as most of the card was already taken up by rose coloured rose designs, when an ear splitting shriek rang through the air and split a number of the wine glasses that the guests were holding, turning a number of coats and dresses a wet shade of magenta.

Before the reverberations of the scream had faded, the remaining unbroken wine glasses were knocked to the ground in shards as the black shape of Heero flashed between and through the guests with the speed and the destructive capacity of black lightning bolt in a tuxedo.

As he whirled pass Quatre, Noin and Zechs, Noin's dress billowing up in a typical Marilyn Monroe fashion, Quatre heard a panicked hiss in his ear.

'Relena'

Quatre paled. He turned about and followed Heero out of the grounds. At the side of the road a small group were huddled. Quatre sped over and hopped on one leg, trying to see over the skyscraper shoulders of two security guards. Wufei, Duo and Trowa swaggered, ran and tumbled respectively through the clearing to the road. Trowa who was slightly taller than the others was able to peer over the puffy shoulder pads of 'Carl' and 'Todd'. The marginally taller pilot's eyes widened and the traces of regained blood that had chugged cautiously through his cheeks were suddenly drained.

'What is it?' Duo asked. He had been worried that it might have been Quatre who had screamed. The voice had been of indiscriminate gender and Quatre's screams of terror could pass for either a man or a woman.

Trowa swallowed.

'It was a car.'

'But who is it?' Duo pressed him desperately.

Trowa swallowed a second time, looking woozy.

'Dorothy'

They all sighed in relief.

* * *

**Mischief mage:** If you are a fan of Dorothy...PLEASE DON'T HURT ME! Yes it was a short chapter. It just seemed like the right place to end it.  



	6. A mortal menu

The five pilots stood in a ring around the tighter ring of Relena, security guards and others that had witnessed the event. All five had their heads bowed; Quatre was characteristically wiping a tear from his huge eyes. Zechs who had, by this stage burst through the clearing and moved up next to Relena, was viewing the body with a look of compassion.

'Do you want to postpone the wedding?' he asked Relena gently.

His sister sighed and began to say 'I think that I'll be alright' when a faint groan issued from the seemingly lifeless body of Dorothy Catalonia. A click and a yell followed. The click from the rifle in Relena's hands as she released the safety catch and pointed it at Dorothy, preparing to do what the car had failed to achieve. The yell also from Relena as Zechs tried to wrestle the gun off his younger sibling. It looked like a preschool tug of war over a toy except the result would decide whether Dorothy would be actively kicked off her mortal coil. Eventually, Zechs, trained in the ways of gripping controls with all his might, managed to wrench the gun from his sister's hands and hold it high above his head, out of her reach as she jumped up and down in her puffy white gown, hands waving to reach it.

Once Relena had stopped trying to murder Dorothy, Noin addressed the issue of, where the hell was the car that had hit the poor blonde. At this, they glanced over to Heero who was already surveying the tire tread that could be seen, stamped onto the road in blood. After a few moments, he stood up and proclaimed to the crowd that, from the lack of skid marks, the car hadn't even tried to avoid her, from the distance that Dorothy's body had been flung, the car had only been travelling at about 20 kilometres an hour and the only reason that Dorothy had been hurt so badly was that the car had reversed back over her…a total of three times.

Quatre looked shocked at this.

'Who could do that to someone?' he cried out, 'who would do that to Dorothy?'

Quatre wasn't reassured by the way that everyone looked at their shoes, forcing themselves to look distracted.

After about six minutes of silence, in which Dorothy lost almost half as much blood as Trowa had earlier in the day, this meaning that she was looking like the remains of a vampire banquet, Noin went so far as to suggest that they have her taken to the hospital. And thus, Dorothy was scraped off of the road and put in the back seat of a van which then drove off in a cloud of exhaust, following an unswerving course, not dodging the juddering potholes.

From behind, Duo could only guess at Catherine's expression. She was carrying a large glass of red wine with an invitingly large, round rim. Duo had a number of tablets in his pocket. He had gotten Trowa into this blood-sucking mess, so he was going to get him out of it. Just a few of his specially concocted pills in the bottom of that glass should do it. But Catherine was following a zig-zagging path amongst the guests and it was all that Duo could do to keep up while still looking casually innocent.

They had circled the grounds at least twice before Duo had an idea. Anticipating Catherine's direction and thus skirting around the crowd, he was found leaning against a handy tree just as the knife-thrower passed. He saw her eyes flit to him with a glare of extreme distrust. He summoned up all his courage and opened his mouth, his voice seemingly confident and scathing.

'Look at that. So the rough circus performer is a girl after all'

She spun to fix him with a glare that would have sent Heero running to Relena. After what seemed to Duo like a decade, she turned heel and walked gracefully off in a huff, the glass held away from her body in a position of extreme fashion. This was exactly what Duo had been waiting for, as she stalked off, he moved along behind her briefly as though moving off from the tree towards the table where the wedding cake had just been placed. As he passed, his hand darted out, lightning-fast, and dropped four tablets into the glass, the surface of the deep crimson liquid hardly rippling. From a distance, he saw the tablets dissolve fully without her noticing and so he began to stride towards the wedding cake where Zechs and Noin were already standing. As he approached he turned to find Catherine striding in his direction with a purposeful look on her face. Duo froze in mortification.

'Zechs' she called, 'I've been looking all over for you. Here's your wine'

Upon returning the glass to its owner, Catherine moved pass to inspect the cake. Duo gabbled, panicking.

'But I thought that was your glass Kath!'

Zechs replied in a tired voice, 'She was holding it for me while I wrestled that blasted gun off Relena. I'm almost ready for this day to end'

And with that, he downed the contents of the glass, Duo gasping.

Zechs swallowed loudly and looked at Duo curiously.

'What's wrong?'

The explosion of the wedding cake saved Duo from the shame of telling Zechs that he had spiked his drink with enough to have a blue whale staggering about the ocean.

Once the dust and icing had cleared, Duo pushed himself up off of the ground, shaking cake off the end of his plait. For a desert, that cake certainly did pack a punch; Catherine, who had been but inches from the cake at the time, had taken the full blast of it and was now lying on her back on the sweetened grass, seemingly dead. Standing up and looking unconcerned that Trowa's sister's epitaph would probably read that she died as a result of injuries caused by explosive edibles, Duo could see the huge circle, with a radius of almost six metres, which the cake had managed to spread itself across.

Various camera-men and reporters were picking themselves up off the ground, faces mixed between annoyance at their equipment being covered with frosting and glee at how much their stories would sell for. Trowa, Quatre and Wufei were sprinting across the lawn towards him, occasionally tripping in the sticky grass.

'What the hell happened here?' Wufei half-shouted, looking around disbelievingly.

'Oh man…' Quatre moaned.

'Cathy? What are you doing down there?' Trowa asked.

'She's unconscious you idiot' Duo said shaking his head, flicking the others with cake as he did so.

A short distance away, a minor eruption occurred in a particularly large pile of sweetness. And out of the crater came Relena, covered from head to toe in icing, the sugary goodness completing her dress and making her look like a white chocolate cupcake. As she surveyed her dress, looking fit to burst, all the guests who had previously been on the ground, got back down on it and all those who had run over to help dived for cover in the event that another shockwave should soon shake the earth. However, the grounds remained dangerously silent as Relena stomped her way back to the dressing room, ignoring the photographers as they snapped up her bridal gown pudding.

'Uh oh'

Duo, Quatre, Trowa and Wufei looked up from their brace positions on the ground to Heero who was staring after his fiancé with a look of concern.

'What's up Heero?' Quatre asked, flicking crumbs off of his shoulder pads.

'You mean aside from two of her wedding guests nearly being killed and her wedding cake exploding?' Duo asked sarcastically whilst he licked the icing off his fingers.

'She's not yelling at someone, or trying to talk her way towards a solution.' Heero explained, ignoring Duo's comment, 'That's a bad sign; it means she's _really_ pissed.'

Wufei blanched and Duo wondered whether that was physically possible.


	7. Number three's the charm

**Mischief Mage:** Gee whiz. I haven't written anything for AGES. Sorry about that. I am super busy this year. But i'll try to remind myself to devote some time to my fanfics :P

* * *

It was definitely a person and judging by the floaty dress plastered to the ground by the sugar, it was probably woman although the short hair was causing general disagreement. The yummy sculpture wriggled in the hardening frosting. Finally, like a deep sea diver coming up for air, Lucretia Noin managed to wrench her head from the ground, savouring the taste of low calorie air.

She looked around her at what looked like a post gundam battlefield. A short distance away from her, lay Zechs. Pulling the rest of herself up off the ground with an unpleasant 'schoooop' sound, she walked over to him in the same way that one would walk through a thick marsh in stilettos. Due to their positioning, Zechs had been largely shielded from the blast by her own body. However, Zechs was out, but it wasn't just a sort of knocked-out _out_. It was an 'I-picked-out-my-lunch-from-the-medicine-cupboard'-semi-comatose _out_. In fact, it seemed that he had fallen over on his own accord rather than because of the blast of the atomic cake.

Her military training still with her, Noin rolled her future-husband over into the recovery position, extremely concerned that his skin was perhaps even paler than Trowa's at the moment. Putting a finger to his pulse she counted the number of beats in fifteen seconds which she took from her phone which read 1:45 pm.

While she was checking his vitals with a leather gloved hand, a chill sprinted down her spine to hide in the small of her back. Noin looked around to see Relena stalking through the mush to the house and her dressing room. Responsible older brother away with the fairy gundams and fiancée busy ordering ambulances for the casualties and trying to skirt the question of 'What happened?' from the man on the phone, it was up to Noin to console the bride.

Noin drew level with Relena just as they approached the caretaker's shed. Relena turned like a robot dropped in a swimming pool to see her. Noin hesitated but composed herself, she was a soldier after all and she could handle this.

* * *

'Yes. Yes. Yes I said ten. No it was not a bomb. Twenty minutes? Okay. Make it quick'

Heero let the cordless phone fall to his side as the ambulance service hung up and wandered over to his four comrades.

He pushed five pieces of black cloth into each of the pilot's hands.

Wufei looked at him quizzically. 'What are these for?' he asked, inspecting one,

'I want you to go out to the main road and when the ambulance's arrive, tie a blindfold around each of their heads, spin them around twenty times and then drive the ambulances here for them.' Heero explained, 'You'll need to make two trips and' he added, glancing at his watch. 2:00pm, 'You'll need to start walking now.'

'The main road is two hours from here!' Duo protested wringing his hands before Heero's face, 'Why do we need to hide the location?'

Heero's cobalt eyes narrowed at his best man and growled 'I thought you would have known why.'

'Huh?'

'The forbidden 'f' word'

All the pilots gave an involuntary flinch.

'Alright then, I get it' Duo said, nodding in agreement, 'Well, we'd better get go-'

It was hereupon for the second time that day that a scream rang out over the grounds like a cat being sat on in the dark. It was coming from the bride's dressing room (yes, the pilots' hearing is _that_ good.) The five youths were half way there before their dopey shadows had started moving.

* * *

About ten minutes ealier…

On reflection, Noin realised that it had been stupid to approach Relena so soon after so many of the bride's prospects for the wedding had literally blown up in her face. The girl had been a ticking bomb waiting for an unsuspecting victim to be blasted to iddy biddy pieces. Sadly, this reflection gave her little consolation as she sat braced against the door of the dressing room, thinking that she would never be able to rake up the stones on Mars without shuddering. The rake had been the closest thing at hand at the shed. Frankly, Noin was grateful that Relena hadn't noticed the welding tool. A large metal rake in the hands of a disappointed bride was bad enough.

Relena had chased Noin across the lawn, into the house where Noin locked herself in the bride's room. Relena now seemed to be attacking the door with the rake with a ferocity that would have made her older brother both proud and slightly concerned. Noin sighed partly from despair and partly from the thanks she felt for the fact that she was in here and Relena wasn't. She looked up to the clock which read 1:53pm. Good. The ceremony was due to start in an hour or so. Hopefully Relena would give up destroying her before long to go prepare…

Wait a minute.

Since when were the walls of the dressing room pointy?

* * *

Forty minutes later…

'Oh mannnn.' Quatre groaned as he watched the ambulances disappear down the road. They had found their way here on their own which was a worry in its own right. But the main thing was that the last ambulance carried the most recent wedding-from-hell victim.

Once a rabid Relena and her rake had been extricated from the dressing building and the door ripped off its hinges, the five pilots had been witness to one of the most bizarre scenes of their lives.

Every wall off the room and every item within that room were perforated with small holes just large enough for a plastic fork to fit through. Funnily enough, that was what had fit through them. In the middle of the floor, in a quivering, whimpering, cut and just generally pathetic looking mess was Noin. Cluttered both on and around her were…forks. Hundreds upon hundreds of little plastic forks. Judging by their trajectory, Heero concluded that they had been fired at high speeds from every hole in the room. A sort of inverted porcupine attack.

And thus Noin was lain next to her fiancé Zechs, who was being sent to hospital to have his stomach pumped. Well actually, he was on the last portable bed, she was on a thin mattress on the floor, being bumped by the wheels of the rolling bed with every sharp turn that the large white vehicle made.

Relena stood alone, partly as everyone was just a teensy bit too petrified to stand within five metres of her. Eyes glassy, she stared as the white vans disappeared around the bend, accompanied by a squeal as Zech's rolling bed ran over Noin's fingers.

Heero approached her and whispered to her.

'Shall we just postpone the wedding?'

Duo almost burst into tears. He was _so _proud! _Ever_ since the end of the war, he had dedicated thirty hours a week to giving Heero human-interaction lessons. He had spent half a year teaching the man how to shake hands without breaking the receivers knuckles and, for his final exam, Duo had taken Heero to a shooting range. The cobalt eyed youth had passed with flying colours, only shooting one person between the eyes. But that was an exception. That guy had asked for Heero's number after all. Common courtesy applies for all but fangirl/boy/idon'tevenwanttoknows.

Duo opened his eyes just long enough to see a head of ruffled brown hair flying straight for his nose as a high velocity.

'Eep' he whimpered.

Nearby, Wufei and Quatre looked away and the recently restored pink tinge in Trowa's cheeks paled as fangirl object #1 and fangirl object 2# collided with a sickening crunch.

'MNGGGNNN!' the braided best man moaned on the frosting flecked ground, clutching his, not so much broken as crumpled into a million tiny pieces, nose.

Heero on the other hand, simply rubbed his head slightly and sighed.

'I guess I'll go get ready for the reception.'

It was pitch black and smelt funny. The conspirators sat in circle but, due to the dark, one of them had sat facing in the opposite direction before wondering why its companions' voices were coming from behind. It bashfully righted itself.

Now a voice spoke, grumpy and tired.

'Well _that_ didn't work'


End file.
